The Diamondbacks are considering replacing skipper Chip Hale, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (via Twitter). Tim Montemayor of Arizona’s AM 1060 first tweeted that there were rumors circulating.
If Arizona goes ahead and moves Hale aside, Triple-A manager Phil Nevin would likely take his place at the helm of the big league club, per the report. General manager Dave Stewart declined to comment on the matter when asked about the rumors by Rosenthal.
Hale, 51, has managed the D-Backs since the start of last year, when he was selected by Stewart and chief baseball officer (and Hall-of-Fame manager) Tony LaRussa to run the club on the field. Things seemed on the upswing after year one, as Arizona showed improvement and logged a 79-83 record. Indeed, the organization picked up Hale’s 2017 option at the start of camp this spring.
The promising showing in 2015 emboldened the organization to make several major additions over the winter. That included, most prominently, the stunning signing of Zack Greinke and the acquisition of Shelby Miller for a trio of critical assets.
With over half of the games in the books this year, it is evident that things haven’t gone as hoped. Arizona sits in the NL West basement at the moment with a 40-55 record on the year. It would be hard to pin all of that on Hale, of course. Star center fielder A.J. Pollock was lost during camp, Miller has been dreadful (as have other recent acquisitions like Yasmany Tomas), and the club has somewhat predictably failed in its outfield defense — among other areas of concern.
Dave Stewart needs to be fired
Why?Because he’s black?
#BlackLivesMatter
Because he is an awful GM! They had zero chance to win this year and he made some questionable moves at best. CYA — fire the manager.
#AwfulGMLivesMatter -Kevin Towers
Really cmon man he is just a poor talent evaluator and nothing else.
What an ignorant comment to make. Dave Stewart made horrible choices in the offseason and now the DBags are paying for it, both figuratively and literally. To blame this on the coach is silly. You can only do so much with what you’re given. If you are trolling, kudos to you but if you are serious, shame on you.
If the BLM comment was a joke Ernesto it was not funny. If it was meant to be serious there’s it was poorly placed.
I think he was joking, but this is the Internet, so you never know. Poor taste indeed.
Black or purple … Poor decisions get you the ax…
Take your BLM anti-American group elsewhere, racist.
Idiot
^^^ his valuation of assets is unlike anything I’ve seen
I know,right?
Color shouldn’t have to do with anything!
I can’t believe the racism!
Yeah, it shouldn’t but what would u think if any member mentioned any other racist organization, other than BLM?
Imagine would blow ur top then?
Seconded.
How he still has a job boggles my mind.
The rules of baseball politics:
1. It’s always the manager’s fault.
2. Refer to rule 1.
Right in the money… Atlanta trade is a total embarrassment
Yes he does as he has stripped the club of both dollars and prospects.
That sure didn’t take long. Kudos to Arizona. And the White Sox sit under .500 again for the 4th year with a guy who couldn’t manage to find water if e were on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean.
Should’ve done it over the All-Star break…….or earlier. The team has lost its competitive fire.
I like Chip Hale, but think that he’s lacking the fire and intensity that a primarily young team needs.
fire the coach now and Stewart in the off-season. believe the fact hale may be too laid back but as pointed out, Stewart can’t evaluate talent. for a former pitcher who knows there are ups and downs, to buy high on both greinke and miller was ridiculous.
Totally agree w Stewart needing to be the one to get fired. As a reds fan, I’d say the only front office worse than the reds is the DBacks. I mean, who makes that Swanson trade. Absolute buffoon.
if you look up the prospects that Stewart gave up they’re not exactly lighting it up but yeah definitely gutted the team. who knows maybe Stewart will get exec award when the Braves start winning with the prospects aquired
It goes w/o saying that Stewart is overmatched and needs to hit the bricks. That said, I liked what I saw from Hale last season but injuries have sabotaged any ability to be mediocre this season. The dbacks pitching and outfield depth is laughable. Mike Butcher is a disaster and needs to go.
YOU RACIST SCUMBAG!
Seriously, what is with your comments?
Are you off your medication Ernie?
Stop
Go play on Facebook
Go complain on Tumblr, we don’t need you here on this site.
Moderator —- Please ban this guy
Aside from Ernesto being an idiot, LaRussa bears some responsibility as he backed the Greinke signing and the Miller trade. I absolutely thought he was a better evaluator of talent AND the ability of the team to win it all now. I think a total remake of the front office is needed.
There needs to be some firings in the AZ off-field staff, but Hale should be the last one on that list. He can’t win with all his best players on the DL or in the Braves org.
No horse in the race, but Hale seems on the verge of becoming the Dbacks scapegoat for failed executive leadership, including the Managing Partner, its President, Operations Executive, and GM.
Trades are about valuation pure and simple. The reason people laugh at Stewart is because he has no concept of financial or talent evaluation. Yes, those minor leaguers haven’t contributed anything thus far (although Blair has contributed more than Miller has this year). But they still have value throughout the game regardless of their service time. Giving out more value than you bring in is a no-no, not just in baseball, but throughout life.
If Mark McGwire gets a shot at managing this will be his best chance he knows the division and the front office connections are obvious I think he will make a great big league skipper.
To bad if Chip Hale gets the boot for the Diamondbacks struggles. He’s not the one acquiring the players.
yep, echo the statement made suggest Stewart is the issue.
I’d love to see Big Mac get a managerial gig though. Maybe when Scoiscia retires…..
Stewart is easily the problem here, his strategy really only works in fantasy baseball….prospects are crap give me proven major leaguers. The only other time that I’ve seen this was with the Expos when Omar Minaya was running them and there was a risk of contraction. He played like there wasn’t going to be a next year and traded off whatever it took to get what he felt was needed.
Poor player evaluation, over paying for average major league talent in trades of prospects, giving up prospects for cash, and shelling out way more money then necessary for great pitching.
Looked bad when he was hired looks worse now when all his moves are blowing up in his face. Not Hale’s fault all Stewart. Take race out of it and he likely would have been fired by now.
Easily worst GM in the league.
I honestly think it’ll be Bob Brenley. But hey, I could be wrong. On the other hand, how’s that Miller trade and 30 mil a year to Greinke looking?
I am an ex season ticket holder for the Dbacks and they need to look at GM Dave Stewart as the problem. I have lost all faith in Stewart, he will tell you one thing and 10 minutes later he does something else. He has made too many bad calls on players.
Fire the GM, but not Chip Hale. Chip can only work with what he is given to work with. He remains a positive influence from what we the fans can see.
But now with these rumors out….. maybe the players will stand up!
Dave Stewart should be shown the door, not the manager.
Maybe Phil Nevin will get the job and the D-Backs will embark on a record-setting .800 second half to win the division and the World Series.
Then, maybe the 200 Phil Nevin rookie cards I have stored away from my childhood will be worth something again!
Has anyone seen Ben McDonald or Ricky Jordan lately?
Every GM has successes and failures. Unfortunately, even though I respect and love Dave Stewart as a person and former player, he has more failures than successes with Arizona. I have watched 10 DBacks games this year and Hale has managed those games well, especially the bullpen. If he is fired, he won’t be unemployed for very long.
Anybody that doesn’t think that Hale shouldn’t be fired either doesn’t watch this team on a regular basis or is just a casual fan that doesn’t know much about the game. Forget the injuries and players having disappointing seasons, I get that that isn’t Hale’s fault, but the head scratching in game decisions that he makes on a nightly basis have cost this team plenty of games and he has definitely lost the clubhouse. In fact, the would have been a better team last season if not for Hale. He is BY FAR, the worst manager I’ve ever seen. And Butcher should have been fired long ago. When every single pitcher on your staff had regressed from the previous season before you were hired, I think it’s safe to say that there is a problem with the pitching coach.
I have a hard time believing Stew is actually calling the shots with Tony there. (Booze pun intended) Both are in over their head as FO personnel with actual decision making power.
But it can’t be LaRussa’s fault. He’s a GENIUS. Just ask him.
That’s the booze talking
Of all the BAD trades D’backs have made, who are the “Impact” players on ML rosters?? I can’t seem to find any, so trading prospects that haven’t done anything yet is quite assumptive. I will save the criticisms for when one of them actually makes an impact in the SHOW.
That’s fair. I think the problem people have is the 1 person involved in a trade like that (Miller) that should be having a major impact at the ML level this year has thus far wet the bed. So if Miller never regains the form of even a league average starter, the best the team can hope for this trade to break even is for the other players to also be bums.
Trades are gambles, but looking at Millers past performance, it would expected him to be better, but oh well. I don’t see people calling Billy Beane and idiot for the Addison Russell/Billy McKinney trade for rentals in Samardzija/Hammels deal. That was an immediate bad trade for the A’s
Whether the players the D’backs gave up for Miller pan out or not does not make any difference to the value of the trade for them. All that matters is how Miller, the player they have on their roster, performs for them. Why anyone tries to completely abstract the value of trades always puzzles me, when the direct method is so much more useful.
The idea of trying to “win” a trade has never sat right with me. Both teams are trying to get better or gain a financial advantage in any trade. But if your goal is to get better and you don’t, while also giving up assets, then you’re a bad negotiator or bad talent evaluator. Or at worst, both.
Or unlucky. Randomness happens too. It’s a game of probabilities.
Trades like Inciarte and Swanson for Miller aren’t about luck. Do you think they could have gotten more for those 2? If, yes, then shame on them. If no, then welcome to the front office!
Again, nobody would be saying this if Miller had performed up to his career averages and the D’Backs were in the hunt in the division, because those are the only results that should matter, and they are the only results that can actually be measured. If some team had given up a similar (or probably larger) talent package for Sonny Gray last winter, and been stuck with his poor performance this season, we’d be hearing just as many amateur GMs with the same 20-20 hindsight, and it would be just as meaningless.
I’ve watched most of the Diamondback’s games this year. I do think it’s time for Chip to go. He seems like a different man from the last year to be honest.
I thought he lost the clubhouse when the D’Backs had a series in Pittsburgh and several players were brushed back or hit in the first game. Then in the second game, the Bucs threw high and at the head of Jean Segura (who’d been hit the game before). Chip Hale only mildly argued with the ump who let it go only to watch David Peralta to get hit in the wrist a second time and ultimately torpedoed his season. Chip needed to go out and get tossed. On other occasions he should have come between his players and umps or gotten the team fired up. He hasn’t.
Since Chip is likely to go, here’s what else I’d like to see:
1. Mike Butcher fired. He has guided pitchers with proven track records to become some of the most terrible pitchers in all of baseball (Miller, Patrick Corbyn). He also hasn’t guided the rookies well, either. He should be gone.
2. Matt Williams got the worst out of the Nats and it seems like when he’s around the D’Backs that’s the result too. Gone quickly!
3. Mark Grace promoted to bench coach. He’s great and should keep things upbeat.
4. Hire Bud Black or another experienced manager. No more first time guys for a while.
5. Lay 50% of the blame on Tony LaRussa and Dave Stewart. Doing things out of the box is fine, but losing AJ Pollock and David Peralta in the outfield and not replacing them with a proper outfielder (much like when they went without a catcher who could hit at the beginning of last season). They need to be more pro-active if the team really wants to compete. They need to learn from past mistakes instead of always claiming they made all the right moves and have the best team on the field. Yasmany Tomas is the perfect example. TLR and Stewart both said there would be real competition for spots. Then let Tomas have a spot. He should have been playing in AAA and learning fundamentals instead of stinking it up in the Majors.
Thanks for the analysis. I haven’t seen enough Diamondbacks games to know how Hale and his coaching staff have been managing such situations.
Yes!! Thank you! I remember that Pirate series. It was either during or right after that when Ahmed got tossed in an extra-inning game for arguing with the ump. He was arguing for a while and Chip was sitting in the dugout. He should have been up immediately to protect his player, rather than meekly saying 3 words after the fact then going back to his seat. Since they had already gone through the bench, Shelby Miller ended up playing left field and they lost the game. That was the day Hale lost me.
Are they considering a GM change, too? It’s the first thing they should do.
It was obvious the second the Shelby Miller deal was done that it was going to go bad. Giving away vital pieces from your farm system for a pitcher who had one decent year is crazy. They only made the deal bc they signed Greinke and as a result thought they should be a contender immediately. So much for that. Maybe they should go ahead and give away their first round pick this year along with a few other top prospects and trade for Julio Tehran. Then the Braves evil plan for baseball domination will be complete. Their GM is awful and even if they had won a few games this year he would still be awful. Firing the manager is a joke. It’s just making a change to look like your doing something but the end result is that your the exact same team with a different guy filling out your lineup card.
Last night was yet another example of Chip Hale’s poor managerial skills. You have your #1 prospect making his MLB debut on the mound. He goes 5 decent innings giving up three runs on 5 hits, but seemed to settle down over the last couple of innings. It’s a perfect time to take him out with a good taste in his mouth and a bit of confidence. Instead Chip lets him go back out for the 6th. Ok, whatever, it’s a gamble, but you need to puul him at the first sign of trouble so it doesn’t get out of hand. The first guy reaches on a single, Chip leaves him in. The next batter singles also, Chip STILL leaves him in. What do you think happens next? Sure enough, a 3 run home run. So instead of the kid going 5innings 3er it is now 5.1 innings and 6er. Way to build the kid’s confidence Chip. These are the kinds of reasons that he needs to be fired. He does something like this almost every day. Forget the record or the injuries.
Anyone that thinks that Hale should not be fired either hasn’t watched this team consistently for the last two seasons or is only a casual fan with no true understanding of the game. I get that there have been some devestating injuries this season and that shouldn’t fall on the managers shoulders, but the nightly head-scratching in game decision making by this manager prove that he is in over his head as a Major League manager. It’s almost as though the game moves too quickly for him sometimes and he panics. I have seen severl occasions where he seemed to forget to get someone warming up in the bullpen in time. His lineup changes are baffling. One night they will win by 10 runs, then the next night all those guys will sit and it will be a completely different lineup so an entirely new team will have to win that night. How can a team ever get hot when it’s a different team playing every night. A player will go 4-5 one night with 5 RBIs and a walkoff hit, but then will sit for the next 3 days. This is why none of our players ever get REALLY hot. And don’t even get me started on “pitching coach” Mike Butcher. How a team can have EVERY SINGLE pitcher on its staff regress the year a new pitching coach takes over and for some reason nobody even suggests that he should be fired is beyond me. And when I say every pitcher, I mean EVERY SINGLE pitcher. Not one has improved or even remained constant. The pitching coach has to be looked at
Ownership should convince LaRussa to manage the team for a couple of seasons.. I know he’s retired but you never know..
I have been a DBacks fan since their very first day. This year has been a tremendous disappointment, so far. To say that this team isn’t being managed well is an understatement. I thought that bringing Tony in was going to put us on the path to winning baseball. Evidently, Ken Kendrick isn’t interested in winning at all. Otherwise he would be holding LaRussa, Stewart and Butcher’s feet to the fire. Hale needs to demonstrate that he has what it takes to manage at this level. So far, he seems adept at justifying his mistakes in the press conferences and rarely goes to bat for his team on the field. When pitchers are having an off day, he leaves them in far too long and doesn’t give the team an opportunity to bounce back. When hitters are hot, they need to be included in the day-to-day lineup and not sitting on the sidelines watching their team lose….again! Kendrick should listen regularly to LaRussa to find out how the # 3 most winning manager in MLB history accomplished that feat. He really needs to listen. I am sick and tired of AZ professional sports in general. The collective attitude seems to be “Oh Well!” Putting LaRussa back on the field doesn’t seem to be a viable option at this point but, Bob Brenly is sitting on the sidelines as a color commentator and could contribute significantly to bringing the DBacks back to being a contender. Butcher for sure needs to be replaced!